If I had a dollar for every time someone said “Music today sucks. Back in my day, we used to have real music!” I would probably start my own record label.
A quick listen through the Billboard Hot 100 will probably leave you gasping for a breath of fresh air. It seems like every song nowadays sounds the same.
It’s not just the sound, the songwriters seem to be recycling the same handful of topics over and over again. So, what gives? Are we just getting old? Are we nostalgic for the soundtrack of the good ol’ days when we were young and carefree?
Well, apparently, even if we take away the survivorship bias and the juvenoia, there appears to be some objectivity behind the perception that pop music is getting worse.
Music is Objectively Worse Today, According to Science
Let’s take a look at some empirical evidence here. There have been several studies done that show that pop music today is objectively worse than the pop music in, say, the ‘60s or ‘70s.
A research team led by Joan Serrà at the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute in Barcelona ran about half a million songs through an algorithm and measured the timbre, pitch and loudness of the songs. And the results proved what we suspected. Music is indeed getting worse over time.
Long story short, the algorithm calculated an overall decline in timbral diversity and homogenization of the timbral palette. What this essentially means is that most, if not all, of modern pop songs use a select few instrumental textures and sound colors too. Not helping the case, the pitch syntax has also become more restricted, which means that most pop songs also recycle the same chords and notes, with minimal experimentation and adventures.
Couple that with the widespread use of dynamic compression in pop music, the entire Billboard Hot 100 can be summed up in 2 words. Loudness war.
So, the research proves that modern pop music is diminishing in quality, but why? Well, this is where I share my two cents.
Music is a Business – And a Rather Lucrative One
This is the crux of why modern pop music sucks. Because it’s a product sold to the lowest common denominator. It has been drained of every drop of artistic integrity to turn the record labels a profit.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. Record labels are not a new business entity, and music has always been on sale in some shape or form. So, what changed?
Plenty of things, actually. But the end result of all those changes gave us a much easier, quicker and cheaper access to music any time, anywhere. The music industry is extremely saturated and there’s very little room for mistake. One little pitfall could send an artist plummeting down the abyss of oblivion, taking all of the record label’s investments with them.
Therefore, record labels are almost forced to take on the philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” which is ironic, because this very philosophy is what’s breaking music right now.
This is why we hear the same 4 chords in pop music and the same subject matter in every song on the radio.
Record labels don’t want to take risks because if it doesn’t work out, it means a lot of money lost for them. This is why every song on the radio right now sounds like either ‘80s nostalgia or hyper-electro club banger. There’s almost no in between, because these styles have been tried, tested and proven to be well-received.
However, as blatantly commercial record labels are with the music they push, they are not entirely at fault. There is one more reason that modern pop music sucks. And that reason is a little more introspective.
Pop Music Sucks Because We Let It
The biggest reason pop music is diminishing in quality is because record labels are still making mad bank despite it. This puts us as consumers at fault for continuing to give these shady organizations our money for giving us half-baked mish mash of yesterday’s sounds with no intrinsic value.
I will give the record labels this: they are indeed experimenting with how much money they can make with as little effort as possible. If you were to conduct a marketing analysis of the music industry, as you would any other industry, you would be thoroughly surprised. It seems like this is the only industry where the consumers are happier with subpar quality products.
It's especially troubling when you consider that we live in a magical time with the entire discography of every artist to ever exist at our fingertips. You can find any artist that has remotely gained any traction on Spotify and YouTube Music. Unless you exclusively listen to music on the radio, there is no excuse for us to keep buying the hollow, colorless, factory-built music the labels push to us.
I understand that not everyone is a music connoisseur, and for most people, music serves no purpose other than background noise and a soundtrack to their daily lives. But as a musician, I find it deeply concerning that music is devolving as an artform and is now no more than a commodity to be sold and bought and consumed on the fly. Like a pack of gum.
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